I have a bit of an obsession with the Pacific Crest Trail. I live so close to it. I can get to a trailhead in less than two hours, if I want. I had plI have a bit of an obsession with the Pacific Crest Trail. I live so close to it. I can get to a trailhead in less than two hours, if I want. I had plans to backpack a large section of it at one point (but then I was diagnosed with epilepsy and my doctors told me that wasn’t such a good idea) and that’s about 33% of the reason I wanted to read this book. Another 33% is my fascination with stories about missing hikers and the other 33% was based simply on the blurb. Then let’s just allow a negligible amount there just for me liking true crime. Let me tell you: This book is absolutely fantastic.
Andrea Lankford may be a former park ranger for the NPS that worked as a cop, an investigator, a firefighter, and a wilderness medic, but she’s also a very talented writer. I found her earnestness refreshing compared to some other writers in this genre and connected ones. Lankford lets us readers hear her vulnerability, frustration, exhaustion, fear, anger, regret, and more as she helps her compatriots search for lost hikers over the course of a few years. Lankford is level-headed and almost cynical after her years in the NPS and as an investigator, yet she can’t help but get wrapped up sometimes in the excitement of new technology that will help them search, or dive deep into research when a really good lead comes around. In turn, we also witness how dispirited and angry she gets when good money goes into resources that definitely weren’t worth it, watch as people get hurt or fall ill during searches, and look on as she sees the families of the missing hikers come around to the the same thing she already knows: that the government basically doesn’t have the resources to look for missing hikers and they usually don’t even care.
This book isn’t about Andrea Lankford, though, as fascinating as she is. It’s about the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), the hiking culture, the main three missing hikers they’re looking for, how they all came together to look for them, how social media has both helped and hindered searches for missing hikers, about different methodologies to search for missing hikers, the dangers that come with being the searchers, how hard it is to resist following up on every lead even though you know it’s probably going to end up being a dead end, and the importance of knowing when it’s time to stop actively looking.
The stories told in this book are fascinating and the people are absolutely remarkable. There are some absolutely powerful and tenacious people in this book and some absolutely horrible people. There are startling stories involving wildlife and a complicated one involving a cult. There’s the dangers of cannabis farms, illegal opium poppy operations, wildfires, illegal mushroom hunting, and trail trolls. There’s also the majesty of Mount Rainier, the rainforests of Washington, the weird beauty of an abandoned Buddhist temple, the surprising tasty hardiness of a cult-made nutrition bar, and camaraderie over many campfires and glasses of wine.
All at once a biography of missing hikers, their families, and the people who search for them, a memoir of Lankford’s experience with this group, and a short history discourse on the PCT and hiking culture, you couldn’t ask for a book that will simultaneously entertain you and break your heart.
I’d like to thank Hachette Books for providing me a copy of the physical ARC of this book via their influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Biography/History/Memoir/Nonfiction/True Crime ...more
“The Exorcist” is one of my favorite films, in terms of genuine, superb filmmaking. It’s a film I will always make time to watch if it’s on television“The Exorcist” is one of my favorite films, in terms of genuine, superb filmmaking. It’s a film I will always make time to watch if it’s on television, and I make a point of watching it every October (along with other creepy classics). I’m one of those people who don’t consider it a horror film, but more of a supernatural thriller…and a fabulous one at that. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to read this book, even though this book ended up being nothing like I thought it would be. Somehow, even though I expected this book to be completely different than it ended up being, it still ended up being a treat for a very different reason, and Nat Segaloff (a name even I know, as he’s been around for ages as an entertainment reporter and film historian) is to thank for that.
I went into this book thinking it would be partially about the making of the original film, complete with plentiful interviews and anecdotes from the cast and crew, and partially about the reception of the film and the lasting legacy it’s left on Hollywood and on both horror films and various film makers as well. Instead, this entire book is one long love (and other emotions) letter to not only the original Exorcist film but to the original William Peter Blatty novel, the movie, all the different cuts of the original movie, the three sequels, the short-lived television series, and talks about the upcoming three-movie sequel set (the first movie in this set is slated to premiere this October as of this review).
Segaloff worked as a publicist on the original Exorcist film, so he was there, right at the beginning, and that’s how he begins the book. From there, this book is as immaculately researched as possible, given that William Peter Blatty passed away in 2017 and couldn’t tell his side of the story for every other side of the story told in this book. Segaloff could only work off any existing printed or recorded (audio or visual) material that Blatty had left behind before he passed (or remarks made to other people that could be considered hearsay).
I absolutely loved all the ins and outs of the movie making processes and stories of how the Hollywood machine grinds away, which is what a good amount of this book is about: fights over script length, casting, production costs, etc. The stories about the unconventional, weird, and on/off again friendship between Blatty and Freidkin were also interesting. The part of the book I disliked the most were how Segaloff insisted on inserting long synopses of the book, the movie, every version of the movie released, every sequel, etc. I ended up skimming those because I didn’t care. I’ve seen “The Exorcist” enough times I don’t need a synopsis. However, I can see the value in including them for people who haven’t read the book, seen the sequels, or just don’t remember as much as I do.
The book as a whole is an excellent book on the history of a groundbreaking film that shocked America and changed the horror movie landscape forever. A great read if you’re into the history of horror films.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
In the early 1930s, at the beginning of the Great Depression, a woman named Sadie gave birth to what was (in those days) a oReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
In the early 1930s, at the beginning of the Great Depression, a woman named Sadie gave birth to what was (in those days) a one in twenty billion genetic lottery: monozygotic (AKA “identical”) quadruplets that all managed to survive the birthing process. To the absolute shock and horror of her German husband, his Irish wife had given birth to four identical baby girls.
None of their lives would ever be the same, and the Morlok Quadruplets would end up having a rough, abusive, traumatizing life exacerbated by all four of them developing schizophrenia before the age of 24.
I requested this book for review because it’s kind of hard for me to stay away from books about the history of mental illnesses or mental health, and because the inherited factors of mental illness will never stop fascinating me. And who isn’t curious about quadruplets who all develop schizophrenia? I know I was curious!
This book suffers from being heavily unbalanced. I enjoyed the first half of the book a great deal, but the second half is very weighed down with tangents about the mob mentality behind so-called repressed memories in the 1980s that led to the Satanic Panic and a lot of dreary technical writing about the push and pull between psychology and psychiatry (AKA therapy or pills) in a world post-JFK and how psychopharmacology has largely come out the winner today because America follows the money and the money always leads to where the profit is.
In the first half of the book, the captivating story of the quadruplets and their parents throughout their childhood and into young adulthood is heartbreaking and made me feel such compassion and sympathy for them. Yes, even abusive Carl and Sadie, because Carl was schizophrenic himself and was raised by an abusive mother and Sadie knew nothing of life but being a surrogate mother for her own mother since the age of two and couldn’t have known how to take care of four children all at once with no help from her useless husband. Talk about a nature versus nurture debate! I had hoped this book would delve more into what the quadruplets went through when they stayed at the NIMH facilities, but these sections stayed pretty general in tenor.
So, while I didn’t completely enjoy the second half of the book (it did have some interesting sections, of course), I did really enjoy the first half. I just wish the book weren’t so uneven. But if you like medical history and biographies, then by all means pick up a copy.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
This is a collection of essays about criminology and criminal justice I didn’t even know I needed. I feel like I’ve just been injected with a huge dosThis is a collection of essays about criminology and criminal justice I didn’t even know I needed. I feel like I’ve just been injected with a huge dose of knowledge that’s going to take some time to totally soak in, but it feels almost like a vaccine: now that I have read and know these things I can’t unknow them and unthink them. Honestly, I don’t want to. I would rather have this inoculation–this knowledge–in my system than not. Because I have taken a bite of this apple and even though that apple was bitter, I am all the better for that bitter apple. The bitterness will help me remember to stay angry and remind me of my sadness while reading some of these essays.
Evidence of Things Seen is split up into three parts: What We Reckon With (essays about the types of crimes that highlight the social inequities in this country and why they continue to be an issue); The True Crime Stories We Tell (essays about how social media intersects with true crime and how that can affect the time in which a crime is solved or how it can negatively affect the parties involved); and, Shards of Justice (essays featuring discourse on the future of criminal justice).
The first part of the book, What We Reckon With, is by far the largest section of the book, as it takes up almost half of the collection. None of the essays in this collection are bad, but in this section, I found that I was captivated and felt most passionate about an essay called “‘No Choice but to Do It’: Why Women Go to Prison”, by Justine van der Leun, which calls into question why women who are forced to commit heinous crimes by their abusers under extreme duress (like the threat of murder) are charged alongside their abusers as if they are just as guilty of the crime instead of the victim of one. “The Golden Age of White-Collar Crime” by Michael Hobbes is a long essay I thought would bore me (which is a point made about white-collar crime in the essay itself) but actually managed to ensnare me instead by explaining very well how is it that every time another old, white man gets arrested for doing something heinous with money and destroying a bunch of people’s lives all he seems to manage to get is a couple of years in Club Fed. It’s a long but rewarding read. “Picturesque California Conceals a Crisis of Missing Indigenous Women” by Brandi Morin reports on a phenomenon that’s well-known to anyone who lives in Northern California (which I do, though not as far north as she’s reporting on), and that’s the extremely high rate of indigenous Native American women who just up and disappear from reservation lands in the upper third section of the state. If you’ve ever seen the true crime docuseries “Murder Mountain” or read up on “trimmigrants” (the migrant workers, largely female, who make the trek up to the Emerald Triangle every year to harvest the marijuana crop), you might be familiar with how during harvest season it’s not only indigenous women who go missing. It’s a serious problem in general in Northern California; but for Native American women it’s so much worse, because they just get snatched up off their reservations and are never seen again.
In part two, The True Crime Stories We Tell, there’s only one essay I didn’t like too much, and that was “Who Owns Amanda Knox?” by Amanda Knox. The essay itself brings up plenty of valid points about how it feels sometimes that she has a doppelganger walking around that is the Amanda Knox everyone thinks she is instead of the Amanda Knox she actually is and that’s the Amanda Knox people keep thinking they can vilify and make money off of. The only reason I disliked this essay is because it felt a bit whiny. I understand she feels truly victimized after being wrongfully convicted by the Italian government twice, but she has her own podcast and a platform with which to voice her frustrations. I just felt like her essay wasn’t at the same level as the rest included in this collection. The other three essays in this section are all equally interesting and well-written.
In part three, “Shards of Justice”, the first essay, “Will You Ever Change?” by Amelia Schonbek completely floored me. It’s one of the best essays in this whole collection in part because it talks about restorative justice, which is one of my favorite rehabilitation tactics to avoid recidivism rates. In this case, the type of restorative justice they’re talking about is surrogate dialogue. Surrogate dialogue takes the victim of a crime and a perpetrator of the same crime (but a completely unrelated one), and puts them at the same table across from one another. Each of them has an advocate and there is a facilitator to keep everyone in line and stand witness for the non-profit running the program. In order to engage in this program, the victim has to approach the program themself and the perpetrator (who has to be out of jail and be evaluated before being approved for the program) has to want to use this surrogate dialogue to help victims heal. It’s a community service. I found this essay to be touching and thought-provoking, because even though programs like this show great potential to reduce recidivism rates, no one wants to fund them.
Another highlight of this section is “The Prisoner-Run Radio Station That’s Reaching Men on Death Row” by Keri Blakinger, which touches on how music is a universal language, even in prison. It’s a touching and emotional essay about how even the residents of Death Row, cut off from Gen Pop, can be part of the great prisoner community by being allowed to write into their prison radio station and have their words heard or their song requests played.
Don’t forget to read the introduction or the editor’s note. They’re both interesting and informational reads. The introduction has a whole lot to say about the late, great author James Baldwin, who was writing essays about how systemic racism ran long and deep in our criminal justice system long before anyone was willing to listen.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Anthology/Biography/History/Nonfiction/True Crime ...more
‘“Hey, you know what Waco stands for?” went one. “We Ain’t Coming Out.”’ - Quote from Koresh
The siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas t‘“Hey, you know what Waco stands for?” went one. “We Ain’t Coming Out.”’ - Quote from Koresh
The siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas took place when I was in my freshman year of high school. That was a landmark year for my family because my parents had finally saved enough money to buy us a brand-new house and we had moved in just the year before and were settling in. I was still an awkward, tiny girl with glasses and I knew there was something wrong with my brain but didn’t know exactly what it was yet. I just knew I wasn’t like other kids. I had a ton of friends, but I was also paranoid and insecure in my friendships. So believe me when I say, Waco was the last thing on my mind at that point in time in my life. Things like Ruby Ridge, the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and Waco wouldn’t become something I even gave some thought to until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (incidentally, I visited that bombing site in the summer of 1995 during a cross country trip and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so devastated before in my life).
Cults and cult leaders have been of great interest to me ever since I became interested in true crime in my late teens but David Koresh has been a topic I’ve largely stayed away from because of how volatile it can be and how much misinformation is out there about the events that happened at Mount Carmel. But Ruby Ridge and Waco are tied intrinsically to the alt-right and the fight against gun control legislation in the present day, so I felt it was time to go in and read something that might give me some insight as to how Waco ties into today’s arguments against gun control and just what went wrong during that siege that made so many people upset and paranoid.
I should note: I did not fact check this book or Talty’s research. I did not have the time to do so. I am aware there is a ton of conflicting research and books on Koresh and on the siege of Mount Carmel. I am also an atheist, so I may come off as dismissive or unconcerned with the Branch Davidians religious beliefs. This is not intentional. I deeply believe in the part of the first amendment where we get to practice whatever religion we want and also be free not practice any religion. I love the first amendment, full stop. I also should note I am pro gun control, in a very, very strong manner, so I will try to keep away from discussion about weaponry. I’m not here to fight. I just want to review this book.
I was very impressed with the first half of this book. In my opinion, Talty did an excellent job not only researching David Koresh’s childhood and family history, but he also did a tremendous job of humanizing the future cult leader. As a reader of fiction and nonfiction, I know how important it is to humanize the “villain”. David Koresh was a human being. His followers were human beings. His family are human beings. The survivors are human beings. None of these people just popped up out of a cabbage patch. Understanding David Koresh when he was just little Vernon Howell is absolutely vital to understanding how he ended up a dangerous and criminal cult leader. Reading the chapters involving Koresh’s childhood broke my heart, made me angry, and made me wonder just how many times there might have been a different choice that could’ve been made or a different way things could’ve gone that would’ve led little Vernon Howell away from the path that ultimately led him to Waco. We’ll never know, of course, but the sadness of a wasted life weighs on me, and it’s going to leave me thinking for just a while.
It’s when Vernon Howell joins the Davidians that the sympathy for him as a child begins to evaporate and turn into condemnation and sorrow: Condemnation for Vernon, and sorrow for those who fell under his spell or became his victims of sexual assault and/or abuse. It’s clear by this point that Vernon Howell had either not escaped the copious amount of serious mental illness that ran through his family or the severe abuse he had received as a baby, child, and teen had damaged his brain enough to cause some sort of traumatic brain injury that had never been treated. It’s another thing we’ll never know and can never be fully explained.
As much as I condemn the Branch Davidians and David Koresh for what they built, what they approved of, what they allowed David Koresh to do to their wives and children, and for their blind fanaticism, I was absolutely astounded at the ineptitude of the ATF and FBI.
Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Oklahoma City bombing all took place before the formation of the department of Homeland Security (which wasn’t formed until after 9/11). Back then, the alphabet agencies not only didn’t share, they didn’t share well. If they were forced to share, it was a dominance fight every time. It was alpha males everywhere, banging their fists against their chests, all determined they were the best agency for the job and sometimes even willing to pull the rug out from under one another’s feet. Waco is an excellent example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing and sometimes even the right hand is unsure of what its supposed to be doing and the left hand is just hanging out not doing their job and acting like frat boys. Up until reading this book I hated Homeland Security, but boy does this book make it look like an excellent idea. What Waco needed was interagency cooperation from the bottom to the top and a very, very clear chain of command. One chain of command. Instead, it seemed like there were about 3-4 chains of command running around and sometimes people were just guessing at what they were supposed to be doing.
Waco could’ve ended sooner and maybe even more peacefully if all these little boys had cooperated, shared information, and had one clear chain of command. Instead, there was chaos.
I did feel like the second half of the book wasn’t as interesting to read as the first, if only because a lot of the time it felt repetitive when reading the transcripts between David or Steve and either the negotiators or one of the other agencies. I’d swing from bored to angry at how our government was acting to sad because I knew how the story was going to end.
The book is a compelling read, especially if you’ve never read much about Koresh or what happened at Waco. What happened there changed the sociopolitical fabric of America that reached into the minds of people who are leaders of the alt-right today. It’s an important part of American history, and you should take the time to understand why this happened and why people have every right to be upset with our government’s part in what happened there.
Because, in the end, the Branch Davidians needed to be taken down, but they didn’t deserve what happened to them. They deserved to go to jail. And a large part of why everything went so wrong was because of our government and the inability to listen or to humanize these people. It’s an important lesson we all need to learn.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, ideas, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Read/Biography/Cult/History/Nonfiction/True Crime ...more
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